When I'm not blogging, I'm painting....

"I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them."

~ Pablo Picasso

"Me too."

~ Jennifer Eolin 

(aka The New Old Biddy)

I've always been interested in art.  My parents have quite a few pieces of impressive art collected over the years. My dad was also a painter before I was born.  And in 1999, I picked up my first paint brush outside of elementary school art class.  It was scary, yet liberating.

Painting is how I relieve stress.  Some people run, others scream, I turn on music and paint.  I can't think about anything else when I'm painting, so I can't A) worry B) worry or C) worry.  It's fabulous!

So here are my latest paintings.  Please note that I paint for fun.  I do not think I'm the next Jackson Pollack. (Although, I wouldn't mind being him, but without the crazy.  And the penis.  I like being a girl...)  So please know that I'm always looking to improve and grow.  I have a long journey and I can't wait!

So let's begin the (art) show!

This painting is titled Dena's Garden since my friend Dena asked me to paint it for her.  (Sometimes a title is just that easy...)  She asked for lilacs and plumeria and this is what my brain made.  It's acrylic on canvas and the background and leaves were painted with a varnish sponge while the flowers were all created with a heavy body paint on a palate knife. I liked how the colors mixed and highlighted each flower. It really helped create a sense of light.  (Since completing this painting, I bought a palate knife that I think will handle leaves as those were painted with sponges and I really prefer to use the palate knife because it gives a better texture.)

This set of two is simply titled Tulips.  I painted this all with varnish sponges and sea sponges.  The tulips were painted with my fingers and thumbs!  

I liked how my hands could get the shape and feel of the flower best out of all my tools/brushes.  A happy surprise that came out of these paintings is that they mimic a window.  Meaning, if there's sunlight on them, the sky is bright as are the flowers.  But when its night time, the blue darkens and becomes quite a different color and the paintings look like, well, night time!  My friend RM bought these.  

And last... Thunderstorms:

This one was painted on a rainy day in NYC.  It's acrylic on canvas (as they all are - it's my fave medium!).  It was painted with car paint scrappers (which are pliable straight edge plastic tools) and sea sponges.  I started by just layering paint with the scrapper.  I just kept layering until I got what looked like an amazing sky.  Then I added the blues and greens to indicate sky and land.  Then the rain.  OH THE RAIN.  I used a silver on the straight edge part of the scrapper to make the lines of rain coming down.  Then with sea sponges, I made all the "movement" in the painting.  My friend, Marcy, bought this one.  She just got it yesterday!

So that's what I've been up to... now I'm dabbling in greeting cards as well.  I have a series to create for my nephew's nursery that I can't wait to get started on!  I hope to start an Etsy store soon.  But that means I need to paint and then not post/sell them on Facebook!  We'll see if that happens...  :)